


Infinite Possibilities

by FlailingSeaWraith



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Avengers: Endgame (Movie), Canon Divergence - Avengers: Endgame (Movie), Character Study, Everybody Lives, Fix-It, M/M, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-06-08
Updated: 2019-06-08
Packaged: 2020-04-23 03:34:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 924
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19142719
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FlailingSeaWraith/pseuds/FlailingSeaWraith
Summary: The world is broken and bitter and grey, but there’s light behind the clouds, life beneath the death. Steve knows the past cannot be held, that it slips through fingers like sand. He craves it even so. But (and here is the hope) the future is brighter than he thought it could be, and full of possibilities that had never been.





	Infinite Possibilities

**Author's Note:**

> Are we still writing Endgame Fix its?

She was here, and he forgot why he had come.

After all these years, she was here (or maybe he was here, wanderer through time) and she was beautiful, so beautiful. It had been decades, but she looked almost exactly the same as the day he had first saw her, punching a soldier in the face. She had been glowing, then, an avenging angel, something otherworldly and glorious. And here she was. Still spitting hellfire; still fighting. He wondered at that fire, almost remembered a time when he had had that stubborn cock-sure attitude. The world had eaten them both up and spat them back out, but they were up for round two, sure as anything.

He watched Peggy Carter fire across the room. She looked a little different, her hair in looser curls, her clothes almost modern, but her walk was the same, forceful and purposeful, and her eyes were the same, bright and fiery like a newly birthed star. She was here, and yet she was not. Glass cut the air between them, cold and unfeeling, just another barrier he could never dream of crossing. It was torture, the worst kind: to see her, to be so close, and yet unable to touch, to know. He was a kid from Brooklyn all over again, nothing beside her glory, her untouchable godhood. She glowed like the sun, and he reflected like the moon, soaked up her radiance but poured it out again, unworthy of her favour.

Absorbed by her gleaming eyes, he had failed to notice her coworker leave. She was alone now, stood like a lone sentinel against an army. In the quiet, Peggy pressed a hand to her face and sighed, looking drained. She was tired, and frustrated, and fired up. He wished he could say something, offer some comfort, but even if he could have spoken it would have come out all wrong, stuttering and spluttering like a teenager. He had never been good with talking, let alone talking to beautiful women, and Peggy was both stunning and fierce. He could still remember trying to speak to her the first time, back when he had been smaller and quieter and surer, and even then how difficult it had been to explain, to make himself clear. She made him want to please more than he wanted to be honest.

Suddenly, she was opening the door between them, and he stumbled back, scrambling for something, anything.

“What are you doing in here?” she demanded and god, he’d missed her voice, the way it curved all words into a gift and a weapon all at once. He had listened to it for hours; had gotten drunk on the notes of her music.

Peggy was waiting, her silhouette strong and imposing. "Well," she said, "What do you have to say for yourself, soldier? This is a private office, not the barracks."

“Sorry, mam,” he replied, gruffer and lower than he’d ever been. “Lost my way a little. It’s my first day.”

His face was lowered and in shadow, but she relaxed a little anyway. “New? You need to be three doors down. Corporal Taylor will know what to do with you, and then you won't be disturbing anyone important.”

“Thanks, mam,” and he barely got the words out, barely formed them. He saluted and ducked his head, turning to leave.

Something in Peggy’s posture gave him pause. She had been agitated and stressed, he had seen that much through the glass, but he’d somehow missed her blazing fury. Head bowed, hands planted on the desk – she screamed barely contained rage, like a set fuse. He couldn't believe he had missed it, but then, he had never been good at seeing the truth of a person, not so deeply. There was so few people he could read like that, and one of them was nothing but dust and (don’t think of it, don’t, it burns like ice) – but Peggy, even when hiding everything under a mask, had never concealed her rage. Some people were true as steel.

“If you – if you don’t mind me asking, mam, are you okay?”

“I’m – I’m alright, thank you,” she sounded surprised, maybe at him, but also a little at herself. “And you, soldier?”

Peggy was the sun: to be loved but never to be possessed. And Steve was the moon, always chasing her, always desperate to feel even the side effects of her presence. He had been chasing an idea of her for decades. But the moon did not orbit the sun. If there was a fixed point in the universe (and there was, warm and safe and touchable, so touchable, and his in a way that–) then it was not Peggy, could never be Peggy, not impossible Peggy. You could love the sun, but love was not belonging. Steve did not belong here. He had not belonged here for a long time.

_Get a life, Rogers,_ Natasha had always said. He had always brushed it off, content to be in his own space. Steve hadn’t realized how much he had been holding back, how much of himself he had crammed inside and left to die. He had spent so long trying to forget that he had never been able to move on.

He looked between her and the case in his hand. His time needed him.

“Actually, mam,” he smiled. “I think for once, I’m going to be okay.”

He felt Peggy's eyes on his back, curious, but he opened the door and stepped back into the light.

**Author's Note:**

> Sorry this was such a short chapter, but I didn't want to draw it out. The next chapter is much longer, I promise.


End file.
